As Darkness Closes In
by Adoran Wa'alle
Summary: A young republic officer gets put out of action on a scouting mission and has to watch his planet be destroyed. He blames this on the senate and it's innability to make quick descisions. We follow him as the Republic turns into a more efficient Empire.


As darkness closes in

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...

Barrow Oicunn nervously paced across the regional commander's office. It wasn't like most offices he'd seen. No high ceiling or fancy decorations. The whole room had a metallic look and feel to it. No superficial decorations whatsoever, just plain metal. Definitely not a place for the claustrophobic. The commander's secretary was seated at the desk, staring intensely at the computer screen in front of her. Barrow didn't envy her.

_What a horrid place to work in..._

He had yet to be accepted in. According to his secretary, Jaster Rokk was a very busy man. Barrow Oicunn doubted that whatever Commander Rokk was doing was more important than what he had to tell. The secretary looked up from her desk

«The commander is ready for you now»

Barrow shoved his personal thoughts to the back of his mind, and headed for the door that lead to the inner office. He was stunned. As the door creaked open, he saw that there was no metal on the other side. The secretary, still following Barrow with his eyes, gave out a low chuckle. Apparently, he wasn't the only one to have reacted that way.

Upon entering the chambers of the Regional Commander, Barrow was delighted to hear the metal clanking his boots gave off when walking through the metal corridors, disappear. In its place was a soft squish. The grass he was now walking across was moist. He had never seen a room decorated quite like the one he was now eyeing.

«Impressive isn't it?» The voice came from behind Barrow. The voice belonged to a grey-haired man he estimated to be around fifty years old. The Regional commander. And the surprises didn't stop there As his eyes traced from Jaster Rokk's face and down towards his garment, Barrow almost stumbled backwards with surprise. He had expected a military uniform. Instead, the regional commander stood on the grassy floor, clad in a flowery shirt that looked like something out of a story. He was wearing short-legged pants, which also were flowery. In other words, he matched the interior perfectly. In his right hand, he held a drink contained in something that looked like a tropic fruit only found in the outskirts of Coronet, namely a coconut.

_I heard he was eccentric, but this?_

Barrow killed a laugh, but not before it had turned into a weak grin. This was his boss, and he had no intention of annoying him. They had more urgent matters to take care of.

«Sir, while I was running through my routine scans of the system, I picked up something weird. The plasma cloud one hundred clicks off moon 3 is emminating with a weird radiation». Barrow Oicunn, the communications officer aboard the Mas Ramdar shifted nervously. «I...uh...I'm not sure, sir, but there appears to be ships inside the cloud. The signals we intercepted were weak, probably caused by the plasma interference. But nonetheless, I think it's worth checking out. Now, the plasma prevents us from just scanning the place, so the most reliable option would be to send in a ship.»

Barrow Oicunn stood at the helm of the Mas Ramdar, staring out the window into the black nothingness that was the Humbarine system. It was interrupted only by the mass of the plasma cloud, lumbering just off one of the moons. It was a beautiful sight, really. Sun glare from the sun gave the cloud several hues that constantly changed. At the moment it was sparkling blue, with dashes of green in between. But it wasn't as idyllic as it seemed. Plasma clouds played havoc with a ship's sensors, making it an ideal place to hide if you want to surprise someone. Thanks to the technology developed on Humbarine specifically to get a clear scanning of the cloud, they had detected ship signatures. The new technology wasn't refined enough to tell them any more than that, so they had been ordered to send in a ship. Barrow was pulled out of his thoughts by a voice emminating from beside him.

«Barrow, we're ready to depart. Follow me to the shuttle.» His superior officer and captain of the Mas Ramdar, Admiral Emerald Porvelie, was a stunning woman. Tall, and beautiful. Long flowing purple hair hung down to her waist, and her eyes had a slightly greenish hue. But beneath the beautiful shell, she was also a brilliant mastermind that had proven her superiority in battle countless times. She and Barrow were on a first name basis. While that didn't seem professional, Emerald was never one to care for titles. And over the years, they had grown to be quite good friends.

Barrow stepped into the relatively spacious shuttle after the admiral. As they headed up towards the bridge, he could not help but admire Emerald's beauty. It was exactly the type of woman he could see himself ending up with. But that would have to wait until another time. Right now, they had buisness to attend to. He approached the front of the bridge, and stopped. He and Emerald would be in charge of the actual scouting. The shuttle was running on a skeleton crew.

_Not like any of the electronic equipment is gonna function in there, anyway_

In under ten minutes after departure from the Mas Ramdar, the speedy shuttle was upon the plasma cloud. Their radars started to black out as they dove into the unknown, the ship being engulfed by the plasma particles. Neither Barrow nor Emerald were quite sure what to expect. Most likely it was some poor trader who had gotten bad co-ordinates and emerged from hyperspace in the middle of the cloud. The viewing distance inside was fairly limited. They could see approximately one hundred meters using nothing but their eyes. But with some of the filtering techniques the Humbarine technicians had developed, it wasn't too bad. Orienting in the cloud however, was another matter entirely.

«I think I see something,» Emerald exclaimed, «Looks like a freighter of some kind. Lets get closer and find out.»

Barrow was about to question the admiral's disregard for safety measures, but he stopped himself. _Come on, what's the worst thing that could be in here?_

Barrow turned to the young man who was the flight officer for the trip «All right. Ensign, turn the ship ten degrees starboard, towards that dot on the horizon. Full speed ahead. Let's check it out.»

When they came closer, it dawned on them what it was. Just a chunk of space debris. Barrow turned to face the admiral. «Emerald, do you think there's a possibility that there is nothing out here? It sure looks empty»

«What do you mean? You checked it yourself.» The Admiral's expression got a bit more serious as she uttered those words. Apparently, she hadn't thought of that.

«Well, there is the slight possibility that there was a flaw in the system...Admiral.» The look on Emerald's face told Barrow that this was not the time to be calling her by her first name. This was buisness.

«Well, we'll just have to check and find out, won't w...» Her voice trailed off, as her eyes traced to a point inside the nebula. « I--Is that what I think it is?»

Barrow Oicunn turned to look, and what he saw shocked him. He was literally unable to move. It seemed as if Emerald was for a second as well, but she snapped back to reality. Spinning on her heel, she glared at the flight officer.

«turn the ship around...**now**! We've gotta get out of here.» She turned back to the view screens to get another look at the ship hanging in space in front of them. It was close, too close. And she knew she had to react fast if she was going to get out of there alive.

Chapter 1.

_Fzzt_

The shuttle's shields took another laser blast, dragging it's integrity down to 80.

_Clang_

Barrow barely managed to hold onto a console as the bridge shuddered violently from the last hit.

"What was _that,_" he exclaimed as he looked towards Emerald, clearly waiting for an answer.

"I don't know, but it wasn't a laser blast, that's for damn sure." Emerald turned her focus back towards the monitor she was standing in front of. "It came from the aft storage bay. Barrow, go check it out, will you? Take a few of our guards with you, just in case."

_Just in case?_ Barrow didn't particularly want to know what was on Emerald's mind when she said "just in case." And seeing the situation they were in, it could hardly get any worse. He signaled to the group of three guards standing besides the entrance to the bridge, and ordered them to follow him into the relatively small turbolift tube. On their way down, Barrow popped open a secret hatch inside the turbolift, and extracted a DL-44 blaster pistol that was hidden there in case of emergencies. _Never thought It would actually be needed_. Barrow was the one that had suggested the small secret storage compartment, and when he was in situations like those, he was very glad he had.

The doors of the turbolift opened with a silent, nearly inaudible hiss of hydraulics, and Barrow could sense his nervousness. His hands were sweaty, making it harder to get a decent grip around the blaster resting in his hand. He exited the turbolift ahead of the guards, and walked down the tight corridor. The shuttle wasn't too big, but there were plenty of places to hide in and take cover behind. That, of course, could be an advantage, but Barrow didn't think that far. As he moved down the final hallway towards the aft storage bay, he heard something. There was someone, _or something_, in the bay. Barrow raised his blaster and trained it on the door, and the guards did the same. The fact that he was the only one of the four not wearing body armor didn't exactly dampen his nervousness. Just as they were splitting up, two men on each side of the door, the ground shook violently, and knocked Barrow off his feet.

_Shucks, we got hit again_

He couldn't help wonder how in the galaxy they were going to get out of this one. Barrow steadied himself against the wall, and pulled himself to his feet. Slowly, he and the guards approached the control panel for the bay door. Keeping his blaster trained at the door, he punched in his 5-digit security override code as silently as he could manage. For every digit, his heart started beating faster and faster, and it became harder for him to hold the blaster steady.

_5...5...5...0...9_

The door hissed open, and Barrow tried his best to not give into the lust of running away and hiding somewhere safe. On the inside, awaited what none of them had been expecting. Barrow could feel the sweat dripping down his forehead as he stared in fear upon the six super-battledroids that awaited them inside. If the SBDs' backs hadn't been turned towards the door, Barrow's life would have ended right there. But luckily that was not the case. One of the guards unclipped his comlink frantically, and yelled into it.

"SBD's. We've got SBD's in the aft storage bay. "

As Barrow and the guards retreated towards the nearest turbolift, they fired their blasters. But by this point, the battledroids had already noticed them. Barrow, much to his own surprise, managed to hit one of them square in the chest with a blaster bolt. But the handy DL-44 didn't pack enough of a punch to penetrate the SBD's quad-layered durasteel armor. And as a result, the battledroid ignored the searing mark on his chest, and started firing. Blaster bolts sizzling all around him, scorching the walls, Barrow fired off one more shot, then turned to burst run towards the lift. A blaster bolt hit the floor right in front of him, causing him to jump to avoid it. Tripping on a lose wire that was unfortunately placed right where he landed, Barrow fell to the floor, slamming his face hard into the floor and rendering him almost unable to stand up. The three guards stopped their sprint and came to assist their superior. Taking cover behind the crates that littered the hallway, they took up positions and fired at the SBD's. A hopeless situation, but not entirely futile. One by one, they were gunned down by the battledroids' hand mounted dual blaster cannons. But their noble self sacrifice gave Barrow the time to crawl into an open ventilation shaft that was right next to him, and seal it behind him.

Paralyzed as he was, Barrow stayed in the ventilation shaft, watching the super battledroids slaughter the last of his men, and then walk calmly towards the turbolift.

_Oh no. The bridge._

The ventilation system was a nice extension of his senses, allowing him to hear almost everything going on in the ship. Out of desperation, he tried yelling into the shaft to Emerald. Tried telling her to run. But he couldn't move his mouth.

_I must've broken something_

Barrow moaned. There was nothing he could do to stop the impending murder. And it was eating him up from the inside. He was trying to come up with a plan, but then he heard it. A spray of blaster bolts, emminating from the bridge. He could feel the tears streaming down his face, and dripping onto the floor of the shaft.

_Damn it! DAMN IT! The CIS will not get away with this. I will avenge you, Emerald Porvelie. You have my word._

Emerald was closely monitoring the shield status when the door behind her hissed open. she turned to ask Barrow what had happened down there, only to find that it wasn't barrow. Instead, she saw several laser bolts ionizing the air, heading towards her head. Emerald collapsed on the floor. Slowly drifting away into the netherlands, she mustered one last thought.

_Run, Barrow. Get away. _

As the escape pod Barrow had managed to crawl onto shot off the shuttle and headed for the edge of the plasma cloud, Barrow allowed himself a moment to mourn Emerald's passing, and to remember all the good memories they shared. He lent himself towards the back of the couch which was the only piece of furniture in the escape pod, and stared out through the window, and into space. His captain was dead. Murdered by Grievous and his men.

_What's in store for me next?_

The pod drifted into space, headed somewhere. Barrow didn't know where, and he didn't care anymore. His wounds were still aching, but that didn't matter anymore. A part of him had died in that battle...


End file.
